Defence Mechanisms Chapter 13

Defence Mechanisms

• Defence mechanisms are used to reduce anxiety caused by unacceptable desires and impulses.
• They have two properties: they deny or falsify reality and operate unconsciously.

Types of Defence Mechanisms

Denial

• Denial involves falsifying reality by saying it does not exist or perceiving it in a distorted way.
• Example: A person denying they are an alcoholic or a student denying they are lazy.

Repression

• Repression involves automatically erasing threatening experiences from the conscious mind and storing them deep in the unconscious.
• Example: Electra and Oedipus complex.

Rationalisation

• Rationalisation involves providing a reasonable explanation to make unreasonable behaviour appear logical and justify one's actions.
• Example: When not invited to a party, saying "I wouldn't have gone even if invited because I have work to complete or I hate parties."

Reaction Formation

• Reaction formation involves behaving in a way that is extremely opposite to one's real feelings.
• Example: Hate is replaced by love, and extravagant behaviour denotes reaction formation.

Projection

• Projection involves assigning one's own undesirable qualities, thoughts, and feelings to other people in an exaggerated amount.
• Example: "She hates me" instead of "I hate her".

Displacement

• Displacement involves transferring an impulse, idea, or feelings from a threatening object to a less threatening object.
• Example: A clerk who is bullied by their superiors displaces their hostility on their wife and children.

Sublimation

• Sublimation is a productive defence mechanism that results in higher cultural achievements.
• Example: Sexual impulses can be expressed in creative forms like painting, poetry, sculpture, or music.

Identification

• Identification involves incorporating the qualities of someone one admires into oneself and starting to behave like them.
• Example: "I want to be just like you, a successful surgeon."

Emotional Insulation

• Emotional insulation involves reducing one's emotional involvement in situations that are viewed as disappointing and hurtful.
• Example: Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment lose hope and adapt to a restricted way of life.

Undoing

• Undoing involves negating or removing some disapproved thought or act.
• Example: Apologising for coping in an exam or donating large amounts of money in temples earned through wrong deeds.

Introjection

• Introjection involves accepting others' values and norms as one's own, even when they are contrary to one's own beliefs.
• Example: In a dictatorial form of government, people may introject the new values and beliefs as protection to themselves.

Acting Out

• Acting out involves reducing anxiety associated with dangerous desires by actually permitting their expressions.
• Example: Eloping with a girl or a violent protest against the management.

Compensation

• Compensation involves giving something to replace the loss or to make up for a defect.
• Example: A student who is poor in studies may compensate by becoming a college champion in sports.

Regression

• Regression involves behaving in a less mature way, i.e., going back to early days of childhood.
• Example: Sleeping in a foetal position, thumb sucking, bed wetting, and frequent crying are forms of regression.